Holiday Food
The holiday season is winding down, and our last guests left yesterday, so it’s time to return to a regularly scheduled life. Having guests on and off, plus holidays, plus days with the grocery store closed meant a lot of food planning–what we’d eat, where we’d get it, plus any cooking and cleaning involved. Things turned out pretty well for us, though, and I will definitely do some of the things again next year.
Christmas Eve we had dinner with our neighbors, and were included in their annual food tradition of chili. Neither my husband nor I would have ever considered kalamata olives as a chili garnish, but it worked and was good. We brought salad and cupcakes, and adults and kids ate well and enjoyed.
Christmas morning I departed decisively from the tradition of my family, who always have strawberries and biscuits. It was long in coming, but I realized a few months ago that I don’t like strawberries that much. I find them sweet and insipid; give me a darker, more complex berry on anything other than a summer strawberry shortcake. So instead I went for savory rather than sweet, and we had my bacon/egg/hashbrown/cheddar scramble.
Christmas night we got take-out Chinese, though it took a bit longer than I’d anticipated to find a place that was open. Luckily Great Wall on France was there for us, and the leftovers served us for days.
In a belated Christmas dinner with family, I spent an assload* on a beef tenderloin from the Wedge, striking anxiety into my husband G. Grod, who then was responsible for grilling (and, we hoped, not ruining) the expensive cut of meat. Like last year, it turned out great–flavorful on the outside and a very tender medium rare on the inside, thanks to the detailed directions from Cook’s Illustrated. We also had salad and twice-baked potatoes with cheddar and broccoli, with leftover cupcakes for dessert.
For New Year’s Eve, we had friends over. I’m not sure how many hours (three? four?) it took to make the lasagna Bolognese, but six of us demolished it in about twenty minutes, and I still remember it fondly. We had salad, a New French Bakery baguette, and pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream for dessert.
For New Year’s Day, we had bratwurst and sauerkraut from Ukrainian deli and the sausage masters at Kramarczuk. This was a great, easy way to have the traditional pork and cabbage. My mother-in-law also made black-eyed peas with bacon, a southern tradition.
There was lots of cooking and lots of dishes, but also lots of good food as we experimented with what will become the family holiday food traditions for our family. We set some good precedents this year.
*That’s an homage to poor, dead, Phil Hartman from News Radio.
January 4th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
I’ll assume you made the Lasagna Bolognese from Cooks’ as well. I’ve made a vegetarian version of it a couple times, and it vanishes quite fast. The ciritcal thing appears to be the amount of liquid in the sauce, just as they tell you.
January 6th, 2006 at 8:23 am
I did a tenderloin (for 11 people!) for Christmas too, and saved a bundle by purchasing it from Costco. You have to do the trimming and tying yourself, but the meat is excellent quality, and literally HALF of what I would pay at Byerly’s or a co-op. Costco is out in Golden Valley? Hopkins? SLP? Somewhere on 394, anyway.
January 12th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
We bought an inexpensive one last year from Rainbow, but I read Fast Food Nation earlier this year, and so have been more paranoid than before about beef.
I’ve not made the leap to joining a warehouse club like Costco (you have to be a member, right?) though I won’t say never.
And yes, the Lasagna Bolognese was from Cook’s. I was hesitant about a lasagna with no mozzarella, but my fears were vanquished.